e-branch
Login
My List - 0
Help
Home
My Account/Renew Loans
Community Info
KidSearch
New Catalogue!
Search
Advanced
By Format
By Number
My Searches
Can't Find it?
Find Magazine Articles & more
Problems?
Search:
Title Starts with...
Title Keyword(s)
Author/Performer/Name (Last,First)
Author/Performer/Name Keyword(s)
Subject Starts with...
Subject Keyword(s)
Series Starts with...
Series Keyword(s)
Anyword/Anywhere
List Name Keyword(s)
Refine Search
> You're searching:
Halifax Public Libraries
Item Information
Copy / Holding Information
Booklist Review
Library Journal Review
Publisher Weekly Review
Table of Contents
More Content
More by this author
Boot, Max, 1968-
Subjects
Lansdale, Edward Geary, 1908-1987.
United States. Central Intelligence Agency -- Officials and employees -- Biography.
United States. Army -- Biography.
Intelligence officers -- United States -- Biography.
Generals -- United States -- Biography.
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- United States.
Browse Catalog
by author:
Boot, Max, 1968-
by title:
The road not taken :...
by call number:
959.7043 L295b
Search the Web
Boot, Max, 1968-
Lansdale, Edward Geary, 1908-1987.
United States. Central Intelligence Agency -- Officials and employees -- Biography.
United States. Army -- Biography.
Intelligence officers -- United States -- Biography.
Generals -- United States -- Biography.
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- United States.
MARC Display
The
road
not
taken
:
Edward
Lansdale
and the
American
tragedy
in
Vietnam
/ Max Boot.
by
Boot, Max, 1968-
Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W. Norton, 2018.
Call #:
959.7043 L295b
Subjects
Lansdale
,
Edward
Geary, 1908-1987.
United States. Central Intelligence Agency -- Officials and employees -- Biography.
United States. Army -- Biography.
Intelligence officers -- United States -- Biography.
Generals -- United States -- Biography.
Vietnam
War, 1961-1975 -- United States.
ISBN:
9780871409416 (hc.)
Edition:
First edition.
Description:
l, 715 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm.
Bibliography:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 611-675) and index.
Contents:
Prologue: The day of the dead: Saigon, November 1-2, 1963 -- Introduction: The misunderstood man -- Ad man (1908-1945) -- Colonel Landslide (1945-1954) -- National builder (1954-1956) -- Washington warrior (1957-1963) -- Bastard child (1964-1968) -- The beaten man (1968-1987) -- Afterword: Landalism in the twenty-first century.
Summary:
"The legendary
Edward
Lansdale
(1908-1987), a covert operative so roguish that he was said to be the model for Graham Greene's The Quiet
American
, remains one of the most fascinating yet deeply misunderstood figures of post-1945
American
foreign policy. Skeptics have belittled him as a con man ignorant of Asian realities, but a few have hailed him as a prophetic military genius whose yin-yang strategy of hunting down guerrillas while employing a 'hearts and minds' approach to win local support provided a lasting template for U.S. foreign policy. The author fundamentally recasts both our vision of
Lansdale
and America's entire involvement in
Vietnam
. Max Boot positions
Lansdale
against the
American
twentieth century and evocatively charts
Lansdale
's itinerant upbringing and his transition from unorthodox California ad man to army and OSS officer. Leaving behind his wife and two young sons,
Lansdale
was sent to Manila in 1945. While becoming embroiled in a passionate love affair with the woman who would become his longtime mistress and later wife, he charted a way for the Filipinos to defend themselves against Communist insurgents by promoting Ramon Magsaysay, a charismatic figure who went from being a lowly congressman to the country's greatest president.
Lansdale
's singular success convinced the Eisenhower administration to send him to South
Vietnam
after the ignominious French rout at Dien Bien Phu. Assigned the impossible task of protecting the South from Communist encroachment,
Lansdale
was initially successful, cultivating the friendship of Ngo Dinh Diem, South
Vietnam
's new president. Then, increasingly sidelined by elitist generals and blue-blood diplomats,
Lansdale
watched helplessly as Diem was murdered in an American-supported coup just before Kennedy's own assassination. By 1965, the "hearts and minds" approach to counterinsurgency that
Lansdale
had so passionately advocated was no longer viable as the United States began a massive Vietnamese buildup. Never a team player,
Lansdale
became marginalized, watching the humiliating 1975 evacuation of Saigon at a painful remove and dying eleven years later, regarded as a "dirty tricks" specialist of a bygone era. Bringing a tragic complexity to this so-called Ugly
American
, [this] biography suggests that
Vietnam
, a conflict whose bitter legacy still haunts
American
foreign policy, might have been different if only
Lansdale
's advice had been heeded. Military historian Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations"--Provided by publisher.
Genre:
Biographies.
Holds:
0
Copy/Holding information
Location
Collection
Call No.
Item type
Status
J. D. Shatford Memorial Public Library
Adult Biography
959.7043 L295b
Adult books
Checked in
Add Copy to MyList
Horizon Information Portal 3.24_8902M
© 2001-2013
SirsiDynix
All rights reserved.